Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

The tories are very keen to pin this strike on labour

Yeah they want a dividing line on this and they absolutely should.

But I think blaming Labour is running out of road. They're not the only party to do it - New Labour dined out on "18 years of Tory rule" - but at a certain point it just stops being credible. I think we're well past that point - the same happened with Brown, a line he'd used really successfully for over a decade just stopped landing

[Josquius]

The tories are very keen to pin this strike on labour

Yeah they want a dividing line on this and they absolutely should.

But I think blaming Labour is running out of road. They're not the only party to do it - New Labour dined out on "18 years of Tory rule" - but at a certain point it just stops being credible. I think we're well past that point - the same happened with Brown, a line he'd used really successfully for over a decade just stopped landing

To be fair we still are feeling the damage caused by the last tory government. Its damage was deep and systemic.
The last Labour government... Put the country in a better place than when it started until the financial crisis which wasn't  their fault. Brown then saved the world (sounds extreme but I increasingly am coming about to that argument)

But in terms of people's perceptions... I'm not sure they've gotten over blaming labour. The lack of knowledge for how local government works and the number of local governments remaining in labours hands has very handily allowed the tories to pass the blame.

[Sheilbh]

Total aside from everything else but I absolutely love this re-interpretation of the statue of Victoria in Birmingham for their 2022 culture festival and hosting the Commonwealth Games:


It's what I'd love to see more of in terms of re-claiming and contesting public art rather than just a plaque. The artist has used motifs of ships in a lot of his work in relation to the slave trade. This installation has built a ship around the original Victoria with five slightly smaller Victoria statues (apparently the one in Georgetown from whne he grew up in Guyana is part of the inspiration). The ship is facing south and filled with those Victoria statues that were sent everywhere - and they're all decked in warriors' helmets with oversized medals based on the medals from colonial wars: the Serangapatam Medal, the Afghanistan Medal, the East and West Africa Medal, the Abercromby Medallion, and the Ashanti Medal.

I think it's really interesting and smart. I like it a lot. I'd love for it to be permanent and, perhaps, a model.

[Sheilbh]

And a few other signs this won't be the divisive wedge issues the Tories hope. Alan Johnson who was a very moderate Labour cabinet minister in the 2000s has come out in support of the RMT.

The polling is that 58% of people think the strike is justified, only a third say it's not; though only 38% of people support the strike (which makes sense: the strike is justified but inconvenient to me seems like a fair median position). Two thirds think the government hasn't done enough and I'm not sure the Tories are going to get their hoped for backlash against Labour's ambiguity:


I think the ambiguity's a bit of a missed opportunity because Labour should be talking about what they'd do differently. But very moderate figures supporting the strike, Lynch doing very well on the media (I really loved this clip with him v a culture warring backbencher - just not engaging: https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1539211930828668928?s=20&t=olN7M0ugdJ8hYS6cJn-J8g) and those poll numbers are not, I imagine, what the government were hoping for. If there's more strikes by other key workers (doctors, nurses, teachers) as seems likely I suspect there'll be even more public support.

I feel like this is another example and there's been a fair few of the Tories just running through the old playbook without quite clocking that public opinion/mood has shifted.

[Josquius]

Avoiding supporting the strikes but making the point things would never have reached this point under labour and workers do deserve fair pay and conditions does seem to be a good tack they should be taking.


I might be half asleep as I don't get the Victoria statue.

[Sheilbh]

I am once again furious at seeing Labour MPs and councillors celebrating that they successfully blocked a new development in their area that was entirely affordable housing units.

Apparently it was "out of character" with the area and carbon. I suspect "carbon" etc will become a general argument for all anti-building campaigns - whether it's for people to live or for public transport infrastructure or for increasing density (both of which are environmentally good)

Edit: Semi-relatedly Medway Council planning department has apparently denied an application by Medway Council to put solar panels on the roof of the council building because it would "introduce a modern, incongruous and out of character feature to a prominent elevation of the Grade II listed building and therefore would be harmful to the architectural and historic significance of this building".

The building:


It may well deserve to be listed but I'm just not sure solar panels would ruin it

[Josquius]

I thought you loved brutalist monstrosities? :p

[Sheilbh]

I do! I just love solar panels too

Edit: Although honestly - not sure I see it with that building. It looks pretty bland to me

[The Larch]

How's that building remarkable and worth protecting at all?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Aerial view of the building :

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1422222?section=comments-and-photos


It has a dark roof that ...well...looks a bit like a lot of solar panels 

[Sheilbh]

Yes

Larch, according to the listing from RH's links:

Reasons for Designation

Gun Wharf, built as an administrative headquarters for Lloyd's of London, 1976-8, to the designs of Arup Associates, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
*      Architectural interest: the use of traditional materials and roof-forms, married with innovative planning, architectural rigor and creative flair, combine to produce a highly successful piece of contextual modernism;
*      Quality of internal planning: a generous and humane office environment is created by large areas of glazing, the building's structural bays which break up open spaces, and the sophisticated sectional planning;
*      Quality of materials and detailing: the building, its interior, and its surrounding hard landscaping uses a limited but consistent palette of high quality, durable, materials; carefully detailed and executed with a high degree of precision and craftsmanship;
*      Structural interest: typical to Arup Associates' work of the 1960s and 70s, the building uses an ingenious engineering solution to integrate structure, services and plan, maximising the building's flexibility and long-term sustainability;
*   Use of site and quality of setting: Gun Wharf was designed and built as a complete, integrated, work of architecture, exploiting its sloping site to sit sensitively within its surroundings, and combining hard and soft landscaping to demonstrate an exemplary singleness of vision; 
*      Level of survival: the building, its interior, and the hard landscape features of the site, survive with a remarkable degree of preservation.

Frankly it seems a little because it's a very Arup project more than anything else. And there's two related British Library oral history entries - again it seems quite Arup focused:

British Library Oral History avatar
British Library Oral History
05 April 2019 at 14:02

Gun Wharf was designed by Arup Associates and was built in 1976-8 for Lloyd's of London as their administrative headquarters. Arup Associates was formed in 1963 with partners Philip Dowson, Ronald Hobbs and Derek Sugden, joined in 1969 by Peter Foggo. The Partnership developed the multi-disciplinary cooperation fostered by Ove Arup's consultant engineering practice; Arup having worked closely with architects since the 1930s. They brought an analytical, developmental and collaborative ethos to the design of buildings for commerce and industry, and their best works possess a combination of rigor and design flair.

The British Library has a vast quantity of oral history collections that cover a wide range of subject areas, including architecture. For the first in a series of interviews with Derek Sugden, please see:

https://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Architects-Lives/021M-C0467X0123XX-0001V0

British Library Oral History
27 February 2019 at 15:10

Gun Wharf was designed by Arup Associates and was built in 1976-8 for Lloyd's of London as their administrative headquarters. Lloyd's move to Chatham coincided with the international oil crisis, and a time of increasing ecological concerns. It was also a time of architectural fracture following the perceived failure of Modernism. There were new imperatives for architecture, and Gun Wharf reflects the three which Arup Associates most notably addressed in its commercial work at this time: contextualism; the creation of humane spaces; and environmental management.

The British Library has a vast quantity of oral history collections that cover a wide range of subject areas, including architecture. For the first in a series of interviews with Philip Dowson, please see:

https://sounds.bl.uk/Oral-history/Architects-Lives/021M-C0467X0071XX-0001V0

Edit: Also something grimly ironic in a building listed in part because it's an example of the shift in 1970s design towards "contextualism; the creation of humane spaces; and environmental management" that it now can't install solar panels because it's listed

[The Larch]

And who or what is Arup supposed to be?

[Sheilbh]

And who or what is Arup supposed to be?

Quite purpose-driven engineering firm (technically still a partnership - I have a friend who works for Arup) that tends to do really innovative/creative projects. They did Coventry Cathedral, Sydney Opera House, Pompidou Centre, Allianz Arena, Apple Park, the ECB building, Lloyds building etc. Loads of big prestige projects in the last 75 years:
https://www.archdaily.com/428945/how-arup-became-the-go-to-firm-for-architecture-s-most-ambitious-projects

I did a search (and I don't think this building deserves to be on the list) and there's a list on Historic England's blog of the best post-war office buildings in the UK. Arup pop up four times which is more than anyone else:
https://heritagecalling.com/2015/01/28/14-of-the-finest-post-war-offices-designed-by-leading-architects/

Edit: I say "quite" purpose driven because they do have good purposes and strong ethical culture etc as part of their brand but I do note they've done a lot of work in China in recent years It reminds me of a documentary about the Foster/Richard Rogers generation of British architects where one of them says he stopped working in Britain in the 80s because Thatcher, before smoothly eulogising the practice he built up in Shanghai instead

[Iormlund]

Going back to Brexit for a bit, it is amazing how European politics could've changed had the UK remained.

Macron is trying (and failing) to have it both ways and Germany is perceived as unreliable at best. Eager to sell its neighbours for the slightest chance to resume trade with Russia.

This would be a golden opportunity for the UK to rally the Scandies and former Russian puppets (sans Hungary) and form a formidable voting bloc.

But they left instead, and now Poland and the Baltics can only turn to the US.

[Sheilbh]

It's difficult to say what would have happened because there's so many variables beteen 2016 and now. Also I'm not really sure what the Scandis and CEE have wanted to do through the EU that they haven't been able to do - and I think the EU response (especially VdL) has been excellent. The problem is member states and their defence policy which is not at an EU level - and I think it's impossible to imagine any British government encouraging more defence policy through the EU, as opposed to through NATO and with the US. So even if the UK was rallying the Scandis and CEE it'd probably be for the same thing now of trying to rally them to NATO and the US because the UK isn't France. No UK government has aimed for strategic autonomy through or for Europe, the focus has always been on stopping defence policy in Europe to avoid it undermining NATO/the Atlantic Alliance.

I'm not sure it's a given that any British government would be responding in the same way. For example, I don't know if a continuation of Cameron/Osborne would be taking the same sort of stance Johnson is - given their "Golden Century" policy towards China and relative indifference to the 2014 invasion, I'm genuinely not sure. I think it's very possible Britain goes down a route of basically hiding in the flock with France and Germany - the John Major/Douglas Hurd approach to the Balkans was, I think, a realistic possibility (I think it's what would have happened if Sunak had replaced Johnson, for example).

Although I think British opinion about Russia, at both the elite level and with the public, shifted enormously after the Salisbury attack so maybe I'm wrong and any British government would be responding as strongly (assuming there's no Corbyn premiership).